The Rising Dough of Motherhood

One Sunday morning, I woke up motivated. Mass at our parish is at 10:30, and with two toddlers, we can squeeze in almost an entire day before then, so after coffee was poured, muffins were distributed, and grapefruit was segmented, I started to make a loaf of bread to serve with dinner so it could rise while we were at church. 

I also woke up that morning feeling guilty. The day before had not gone smoothly. Nor the day prior. I had been irritable. The kids had alternated between being disobedient and attached to my leg. And my husband had left on a work trip while an unresolved conflict hovered like a storm cloud. I had spent the previous 48 hours distracted and reserved as I rewrote conversations in my head and stewed on potential resolutions. In my moody haze I had yelled more times than I’m comfortable admitting. Sunday morning was, blessedly, my chance to start over. 

I slid a chair over to the counter so my 3-year-old could watch the yeast foam, and then less-than-carefully dump in the flour and salt. I explained how we were making the bread that would become his morning toast, but we needed to be patient because this bread, unlike the quick pumpkin and banana loaves we often make, takes time.

Then I reread the instructions and realized the loaf needed three rises. Three! That seemed excessive and I wasn’t sure I was that patient. 

I huffed at God, whining that I was trying and still there were obstacles and frustrations. I lamented that I may never get the minutiae of motherhood right. Why, oh why, after four and a half years was I still falling and failing on a daily basis? When would it all smooth out?

After lobbing my volley of complaints, as I washed dough off my hands, I heard so clearly: “Maybe you’re in the midst of another rise.” I halted.

It’s a powerful image, that as mothers and fathers we start out as a heap of ingredients, dumped into the bowl haphazardly. It takes time to knead together the water and flour and yeast and salt until they relent and mingle, and so too do we need time to massage away our long-honed independence, self-reliance, self-assurance. We are molded into our first version of parenthood during the newborn days, when you stare into dark little eyes during a long, dark evening, and you wonder if you’re doing any of it right, if you’re built for this. But in time, you find a rhythm. You set a schedule. Sleep returns, even if only a bit. You start to rise, only to get punched back down by toddlerhood.  

Parenthood is a constant humbling. A pumice stone to your rough edges, your sinfulness, your pride. A magnifying glass to the wounds and shortcomings you have worked to patch over. Someone constantly telling you when you’re wrong, when you’re mean, when you’re hurried or harried or unfair. And though it’s hard to swallow, there is truth in those utterances from our little critics, and it’s by learning from them we rise. 

And we do rise. We eventually get the hang of nap schedules, or calmly help our toddlers self-regulate, or finally get to school drop-off on time. But after each rise, in each new season, we are punched back down as we must relearn to parent anew. I predict a punch down with  with elementary school and independence, and again in high school. Maybe again in young adulthood, college essays, marriages, grandbabies. Parenthood is a series of risings, deflations and kneadings, being formed and reformed into the shape our children need at that given moment, and into a closer version of the person God intended for us to become.

And it makes sense that if Jesus is the bread of life, we are but dough, striving for his likeness, but not quite there. We’re getting mixed and molded, massaged and formed. We start to feel our expansion, our holiness, and we wonder if we’re nearly there, only to get the air knocked out of us once more. Ebbs and flows, valleys and peaks. That is the life of a Christian. So too that of a parent.

As I chewed on this metaphor, I wondered when, as parents, we get baked into bread ourselves? When are the risings and fallings done? When our children are independent? When they’re married or in the priesthood? When we’re too old to care for, and instead are being cared for? No, I bet we become bread in heaven. 

In heaven I hope Jesus looks at us and sees the many times we gave of ourselves for our little ones. The times we swallowed our pride, or our tongue. The nights we spent wiping runny noses or running with the puke bucket. I hope he sees the chapped nipples and the endless mind-numbing games of Go Fish. He might see months when fear and exhaustion ran high, dotted with moments where we created and fostered joy. I hope he sees meals, both ravenously inhaled and completely untouched, at the dinner table. I hope he sees the moments I learned to slow down, to savor, to play, to giggle, to trust.

I hope he sees the risings and fallings, the successes and failures, and still welcomes me home.